Thursday, September 15, 2016

The closure

The Chainsmokers performed in the Philippines last month. Screen capture from
Youtube

IT all started when the officemates of a high school friend of mine, who is now based in Singapore, posted a video of them dancing to the Chainsmokers and Halsey hit "Closer". They posted the video on the day my PBA D-League coverage ended, so I reposted the video the day after with the caption, "[I] would have loved doing one in Biñan (Alonte Sports Arena) last night (Stu Traveled mode: If you want to go to ASA, take the Mamplasan Interchange from SLEX and go east bound. ASA is inside the Biñan City Hall Complex)."

Exactly three weeks after they posted their "Closer" dance and with other people following suit, here I am updating my Christian blog (setting aside my sportswriter duties and snapping yet another dormancy period of this website).

Here's the thing: I accepted the "after-work challenge", or the "'Closer' dance challenge" for others. I already choreographed most of the steps (all by myself) while working out at the gym but eventually gave up and vowed, "I will just do a guitar cover instead (never too late to play the six-stringer)."

But everything changed when I joined my churchmates for a jog.

After we finished (we actually didn't finish the full course because two of us thought we took a different path) the run, I somewhat joked to my churchmates about the "zumba" dance by performing the first step of my "Closer" dance (Don't dare me to repeat it) while singing it.

Then one of my churchmates "rebuked" me about the song, currently at number one in various radio countdowns and may have had some airtime in "masa" stations as well.

This is where the point of this post comes in. "Closer", although in a "beautiful" manner, discusses about sex, especially the chorus (I am expecting Andrew, Alex, and Ashley [Halsey's real name] to air their side of the song if they see this). While there's nothing wrong in sex in general, the song primarily discusses pre-marital sex, which somehow degrades the sacredness of marriage (read Genesis 2). I simply overlooked the song's sense.

To be fair, there's nothing wrong if Christians patronize some secular music. In fact, I would say that I like "Closer" more than "Roses" and "Don't Let Me Down".

But again, I overlooked what "Closer" is all about, and that's the same for most of us. We tend to like a new hit so much that we ignore the message it implies, especially if it's NSFW.

To end this, I'm just gonna remind you that before you should check first the implied (or sometimes explicit) message of the hit song and determine whether it's "wholesome" to your standards or not. But above anything else, ask God that He will direct you as you listen to the tracks on the radio. And of course, there's nothing more pleasing to our ears than worship songs to our Lord. And to further discern what songs we should put in our playlists, here's God's (through Paul) tip for you:

"...be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord... (Ephesians 5:18b, 19 KJV)"